


Shadow: Retrieve your power limiters

by rarmaster



Series: don't you worry child [18]
Category: Kingdom Hearts, Sonic the Hedgehog - All Media Types, Tales of Graces, Tales of the Abyss
Genre: DYWC, Gen, NYWAY YOU EVER THINK FONDLY ABOUT SHADOW'S FUCKING POEWR LIMITERS, Or is that just me, almost as confusing as having two kratoses, anyway jade continues being a bitch while shadow nearly dies but it's fine it works out, fun fact: jade and shadow share an eng va, repliku is very worried about his hedgehog friend also, shadow comes close to dying but he lives, yes that is 80 percent of the reason why i wrote this, you also ever think about how the dywc continuity has two jades now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-24
Updated: 2020-01-24
Packaged: 2021-02-25 08:07:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22392811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rarmaster/pseuds/rarmaster
Summary: Shadow cannot retrieve his power limiters. One of them is broken.Or: Shadow nearly dies because he's not meant to harness that much chaos energy at once. Thankfully, Jade is here to help. Actually, hold on, should we really be grateful for that?Or: I really just wanted Shadow the Hedgehog and Jade Curtiss to interact.DYWC
Relationships: Riku Replica & Shadow the Hedgehog
Series: don't you worry child [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1414204
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	Shadow: Retrieve your power limiters

**Author's Note:**

> housekeeping: Repliku is from FtPverse, he goes by Riku for Reasons TM. Namine is also from FtPverse, and is a replica. 
> 
> further housekeeping: Jade and Sophie know each other because they were a bonus boss together in Tales of Zesteria. They only interacted for like five minutes but it was the cutest five minutes I've ever fucking seen. They both just adopted each other immediately. It was incredible.
> 
> further further housekeeping: yes i combined and split teams off screen. yes you just have to deal with that. i'm not really writing this series in chronological order so you'll just have to Cope, tho i am sorry that i'm introducing you to only half of Team A. oh well.

A list of very horrible things that happened today, in succession:

1) They were separated from the rest of their group. This itself is not horrible, just an annoyance and somewhat worrying ( _are Dave and Kratos okay? Shadow is even worried about Anna, and Mithos, and Chara._ )

2) While it was just him and Riku, some kind of creature attacked them. It’s huge, and regenerates quickly—composed of something gooey like ink or paint, if only such a thing were also sentient. The goo is white and shimmering iridescent; it corrodes everything that touches it for more than a few seconds, as if its attempting to _digest_ the very world.

3) The foe was so deadly, when taken on by him and Riku alone, that Shadow was forced to remove his limiters. This itself is more of an annoyance than something horrible. It’s frustrating to be forced to harness every ounce of chaos inside him—nevermind _dangerous_ , but it got the job done, eventually reducing the creature to splatters on the surrounding city ruins. Still corrosive, but no longer sentient.

But the most, most horrible thing that happened today?

One of Shadow’s limiters broke.

“Shit,” Shadow says, his heart in his throat. There hadn’t been time to toss them to Riku for safekeeping, so he’d just deposited them on the ground, and—and one of them landed in the corrosive goo, and. Shadow hastily yanks it out of the puddle, but the damage has already been done. The section of the ring that had touched the goo disintegrates the moment he touches it, leaving three quarters of a ring behind. “Shit, shit, _shit_ ,” Shadow says, for emphasis.

There is going to be no fixing that.

With trembling hands, he finds his other limiter—that one still an unbroken golden ring, at least. He snaps it onto his wrist, breathing a short sigh of relief as _some_ of the unbridled storm in his veins is siphoned off. It’s enough release from pure chaos that he can _breathe_ again, but it’s not… It’s not enough. On its own, it’s not enough.

“ _Shit_ ,” Shadow hisses, one last time.

“Shadow?” Riku asks, having finally made his way across the battlefield ( _having taken care because the paths through the goo were not forgiving_ ). He kneels down in front of Shadow. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?” he asks, tone pitched up with his worry. His hands, held towards Shadow, are already gently glowing green.

Shadow shakes his head. “No,” he answers, because he’s not hurt.

( _The grim promise that he_ will _be in pain, later—in_ incredible _pain, later—sits loudly in the back of Shadow’s mind._ )

“What’s wrong?” Riku asks.

In answer Shadow takes his broken limiter and places it in Riku’s awaiting hands.

Riku squints at it, turning it over. “What’s…?” he begins.

“I’m not… My body can’t _handle_ that much power, not for long,” Shadow explains, rough. He scowls, because he hates talking about this, hates having to reveal this much about himself at all. It makes him feel weirdly vulnerable in all the ways he loathes. “These are supposed to- to siphon it off. So I’m not channeling the full of it all the time.” He flicks the unbroken one he’s wearing as part of his explanation.

“And if it’s broken…” Riku says, brow darkening in understanding. He hands the broken limiter back to Shadow. “Is one enough?”

Shadow shakes his head, grim, a little embarrassed.

“What’s going to happen without it? Are you going to be okay?” Riku presses. Shadow snarls, silent, instead of answering. “Shadow, come on. It’s important. We can’t- I can’t help you if I don’t know.”

Shadow swallows. He’s already given out too much of himself, but— _but._ Riku is right. If he doesn’t want to die, then he has to explain what’s wrong. And Riku… Riku _is_ his friend. He’s not Rouge, he’s not Omega, and he’s not even Sonic, but… he is someone that Shadow can trust. Even with this.

So.

“I haven’t gone long without them before,” Shadow admits, voice subdued with the shame of asking for help. “But I know… the chaos will tear my body apart, if left unchecked.”

Riku blinks, horrified. “You could _die_ …” he whispers.

( _Riku thinks of his own body, breaking down as the unchecked darkness ate at him ate at him ate at him… It was the worst few months of his life. Does Shadow have months? Less time than that? He looks like he’s okay_ now _but how much of that is actually being okay, and how much is that Shadow’s usual brave face?_ )

Shadow shrugs.

“How…” Riku swallows, clearly shaken. “How long?”

Again, Shadow shrugs. “With neither of them on, I have an hour at best before the worst of it starts to kick in,” Shadow answers. “With only one… I don’t know. This has never- I’ve never _lost_ either of them.” Just gone too long between taking them off and putting them back on.

Riku looks like he’s about to be sick, so Shadow sighs.

“I feel _okay_ right now,” he insists, trying to reassure his friend. “But I don’t… I don’t know how long that’ll last.”

“Okay,” Riku says. “Shit,” he says, which must mean he’s upset, because Shadow has never heard him cuss before, always opting for more child-friendly flavors of the words. “Okay,” Riku says again. He gets to his feet, offers a hand out to Shadow. “Let’s… get away from here, at least. I don’t know if this stuff is gonna spread but now would be… a really bad time for that.”

“Yeah,” Shadow agrees, and takes the hand, yanking himself to his feet. It doesn’t… _hurt,_ not yet. It just feels like he’s a boat out at sea; unsteady, with water sloshing over the sides. Except the water in this metaphor is chaos, and when he touches it it burns.

“Here…” Riku supports Shadow as they walk, going further into the ruins of this city. Vines and other flora overtake most of the buildings; growing through windows, skyscrapers lying diagonal, pulled down by vines and supported by trees. It looks like no one’s lived here for thousands of years.

“What a barren city…” Shadow comments, but Riku doesn’t reply, because—

 _“Riku!?”_ Calls a new voice, sounding delighted.

Riku reacts like he’s just heard the voice of someone familiar, someone he knows, someone he _misses._ “Namine?” he calls back. And then: “Hang on, Shadow, can you—”

Shadow pulls himself away from Riku. He _can_ stand on his own, thank you. He does not sway, but his insides are still like that boat, rocking restlessly. Honestly, that thing they fought, that iridescent goo… it has the same qualities of chaos, in a way. Highly dangerous, highly destructive. Ready to chew up anything it touches—only chaos spits it back out when it’s done, and that goo didn’t seem to want to give _anything_ back.

Riku swivels towards a noise Shadow can’t hear right away, but seconds later he spots the girl ( _blonde in simple, pale clothes—somehow she looks the Same as Riku in a way Shadow cannot realistically pin if pressed_ ) cautiously making her way down one of the skyscrapers. Riku fidgets, makes his way towards her, but lets her descend on her own rather than trying to help though it looks like he’s bursting with the need to.

“Do you know Joseph?” Riku asks, as the girl approaches.

The girl— _Namine—_ instantly breathes a sigh of relief. “Yes!” she says. “Yes, yes! Riku that _is_ you, thank goodness, I was worried that—”

“That’d be a different me, or Real Thing?” Riku echoes, grinning as he takes Namine’s hands, squeezing them tight like maybe he doesn’t want to let go of them. “Yeah, same. Hey, who else is with you?”

“Sora was,” Namine answers. “ _Our_ Sora. But he—we got separated. And there’s—”

At that moment, another girl lands on the ground next to Namine, knees bent like she just jumped from the top of the skyscraper rather than climbing down. There _isn’t_ a small crater around her—surprising, Shadow thinks—but she does kick up a lot of dust. She’s about a head shorter than Namine, dressed primarily in purple, her long purple hair drawn up in pigtails. She looks a few years younger than Namine, too.

“This is Sophie,” Namine introduces, looking exasperated but not surprised by Sophie’s stunt.

Sophie beams. “Nice to meet you!!” she says, brightly. Then she squints at Riku. “Is this a friend of yours, Namine?”

“Yes, actually,” Namine begins.

“Hold on, hold on,” Riku interjects, dropping Namine’s hands. “That’s great and all, and I’d love to talk, but we’ve got something of an emergency here. Something’s—Something’s wrong with Shadow, and it’s not something Cure can fix, and…” He looks pleadingly towards Namine. Shadow raises his eyebrows, doubting _Namine_ could help him. Honestly, in this situation, the only person Shadow can think of with the expertise to fix this is… Actually, Tails. Or Eggman, but he would be Shadow’s last choice.

“What kind of problem?” Namine asks, turning to Shadow, concerned.

“He doesn’t _look_ hurt,” Sophie observes, peering at Shadow. Shadow bites his tongue. She’s young enough to think she’s being helpful, and also say everything on her mind.

“Remember—the Darkness Protection Protocols,” Riku says, to Namine. “When I didn’t have them, and…”

“Oh _no,”_ Namine whispers, instantly. Her expression says she understands just… _exactly_ what is going on with Shadow.

“The what?” Sophie asks, turning towards Riku, then Namine.

“It’s like, it’s just,” Riku begins, scowling. “Well is there anyone else with you two? Or- or Sophie, do you know anything about… magic, I guess? Like really dangerous magic that could- could eat someone from the inside out—”

“Well,” Namine says, looking uncomfortable.

“Oh!” Sophie says, brightly. “Hold on, Jade should know something, I’ll go get him—he was complaining about the climb but… Well, if it’s an emergency I should be able to convince him to hurry.” And then she’s climbing—jumping, really—back up the skyscraper.

The name rings familiar to Shadow, but Sophie said _he,_ so it must not be the Jade that Dave is friends with. A shame, actually.

Riku turns to Namine, worried, having picked up something in her expression that Shadow missed. “Namine?” he asks.

Namine runs a hand over her face and sighs. That’s not confidence inspiring at all.

“It’s… fine, really, Sophie’s right—Jade _might_ know something,” she says. “He’s a really powerful… They use the word fonist, in his world? He knows a lot about magic…”

“ _But?_ ”

Namine sighs again. “No, it’s nothing, really,” she says. “His personality just… leaves something to be desired?”

“Great,” Shadow says, dry. And this is the guy they think might help him _not die_?

( _Well… in these circumstances, Shadow supposes he’ll have to take anything he can get._ )

“He’s really not that bad,” Namine insists, rubbing at her arms. Riku raises his eyebrows like he doesn’t believe her, so after hissing shortly between her teeth she adds: “It’s just—I mean, you wouldn’t ask Yen Sid to heal a bleeding chest wound, would you?”

Shadow has no idea what the fuck that means, but Riku makes a thoughtful—if uneasy—face.

“I mean. He knows Curaga—”

“ _But would you ask him._ ”

The thoughtful face becomes a grimace. “No,” Riku admits. “I wouldn’t,” he says, and then his grimace becomes even deeper, enough he recoils a little away from Namine. “Hold up, this Jade guy—tell me he doesn’t have _Yen Sid’s_ personality.”

“Oh, _god_ no,” Namine laughs. “Yen Sid has the personality of a _stale napkin_! Jade’s just… He’s…” Namine makes a face. “I really can’t explain him, honestly. You’ll just have to… You’ll understand when you meet him.” She says this, then looks to Shadow, her confusion and humor vanishing slowly away, her expression softening and darkening all at once into concern. “Sorry, we’re just standing here joking around…” she apologizes. “Are you… are you okay, Shadow?”

Shadow shrugs, grinds his teeth. “Fine, for now,” he says. It’s the truth.

“But not forever,” Riku adds, and something about his tone must communicate volumes to Namine, because her lips pinch together, tight and worried.

From above, comes Sophie’s voice. “Uncle Jade, hurry up!! They _said_ it was an emergency!”

And then, a new voice: “Not everyone can take falls like you can, Sophie, you’ll have to give me a second.”

Sophie finishes descending the skyscraper, and behind her follows a man dressed in sea green, his long brown hair falling to his beltline. He carefully skids down the last few feet and then lands on the ground, after which he dusts himself off as he straightens.

“And what exactly appears to be the problem, here?” he asks, adjusting his glasses as he looks up. And then he meets eyes with Shadow. And he stops. And he’s silent for a moment. And then he lets out a short breath. “Never mind,” he says. “I can feel what your fonons are doing already, and I haven’t even done a proper analysis yet.”

“My what?” Shadow says, not having the patience for this.

“Fonons,” Jade repeats. “Ether. Eleth. Mana. The energy that makes up your body, whatever name it chooses to go by.”

“Chaos?” Shadow supplies, even though he’s pretty sure that’s a Him thing, and not an everyone thing.

“If you want,” Jade says, with a shrug, then shoves his hands into his pockets.

“Well? Can you do anything?” Riku asks, impatient. Shadow shoots him a look he doesn’t see. Really, he doesn’t need Riku speaking for him—or worrying about him this much.

“I know you can, can’t you Uncle Jade?” Sophie chimes in, peering eagerly up at him. “You can do anything!”

Jade simply tilts his head to the side, smirking unapologetically as he speaks. “Oh, there might be some long list of my good deeds in the heavens _somewhere_ , but I am simply not a miracle worker, Sophie, my apologies.”

Shadow is starting to understand Namine’s earlier remarks about this guy.

“That’s real helpful,” Riku spits, sarcastically.

Jade shrugs again. “I’d prefer to be honest than to lie and give you any kind of baseless hope, is all.”

“But!” Sophie protests. “You have to do _something_ , or—!”

“It’s fine, really,” Shadow says, sharp. “If Mythra and her siblings want us around so bad, one of them has to be able to give me a ride home long enough to get a replacement limiter.” And then maybe he could just _stay_ home. As much as he’s enjoying this journey—or at least, spending time with his new friends—he misses Rouge, and he misses home, and his luck some kind of world ending phenomenon is happening in his absence anyway and he can only trust Sonic so far to fix that kind of shit alone.

“A replacement what?” Jade asks, interrupting his thoughts.

Shadow sighs, chucks his broken limiter in Jade’s direction. To Jade’s credit, despite having had his hands in his pockets, he manages to catch it just fine. “That thing,” Shadow explains. “If it wasn’t broken, I’d be fine.”

Jade holds it up to the light, turns it over. “Well,” he says, at length. “Unfortunately, this is also outside of my area of experti…” He stops. Turns his eyes away from the limiter and then to Shadow, his expression weighty. “Is it part of a set?” he asks.

Shadow wonders how he knows. Lucky guess? Fonon bullshit? It doesn’t matter.

“Yeah,” he answers.

“Can I see the other?”

Shadow doesn’t see why not.

“Sure,” he says, and snaps the undamaged limiter off his wrist. The chaos that floods him is immediate and terrible—he is but a piece of driftwood in the wake of a hurricane, trying to hold his ground. And he must unconsciously flinch in some way, because Riku inhales with sharp worry.

“ _Shadow_ ,” he hisses, concerned.

“I’m fine,” Shadow insists. He tosses this limiter to Jade, who catches it with ease, passing the broken one to Sophie. He can _feel_ Riku still fretting, fidgeting three feet to Shadow’s right as he is, so Shadow sends Riku a glare, hoping to communicate that _if he doesn’t let Jade look at his limiter, they’re back at square one._

Besides, as long as Jade doesn’t want to stare at it for an hour and Shadow doesn’t actively try and burn any more energy before then, it should be alright.

“Well, alright,” Jade says, after a long moment. “I can’t say I’m exactly… hm. Namine, what was the word Sora used?”

“Oh god,” Namine mumbles.

“Jazzed?” Jade tries.

“Please no.”

“Pumped?”

Namine whines something incoherent into her hands, in which she has buried her face.

“It’s not exactly a ‘big mood’—”

“Oof,” Riku says, looking like he’s in as much pain as Namine.

“That’s not even how you use that phrase,” Namine moans.

“—to be using fomicry again,” Jade finishes, “but I suppose if I must.”

And then he tosses Shadow’s limiter up in the air. It hangs suspended for a few seconds past the point where gravity should have taken over, spinning over on itself as energy gathers around it, then Jade. It happens too fast for Shadow to follow, especially since it’s not a thing he understands, but the energy releases, and pops, and.

Two limiters, both glimmering and unbroken, fall to the ground.

“There you are,” Jade says, and shoves his hands back into his pockets.

Riku makes a face like he’s about to call Jade a little bitch, and Shadow admits that tossing both limiters on the ground like that—instead of, you know, handing them over— _is_ kind of a bitch move, but whatever. He makes his way over and picks them up, finds he can’t even tell the difference between the two of them.

“What’d you do?” he asks, as he turns them over in his hands, just one more time. Still, he can see no flaws, no defects, no differences.

“Fomicry,” Jade answers. “I replicated the one you had. Does it work?”

Only one way to find out.

Shadow snaps one limiter on his wrist, and then the other. Chaos is siphoned _completely_ off from him, this time, and Shadow breathes the first sigh of relief he’s been able to in the past twenty minutes.

“Yeah,” he says. “It does.”

“Good,” Jade says. “Replicating technology with such a specific energy output is somewhat more difficult than replicating something that doesn’t output energy at all, but of course I _am_ a master fonist, so it only makes sense that I got it perfect first try.” He grins lazily.

“Hold on,” Riku says. “When you say… _replicating_ …”

Namine shakes her head, cutting off Riku’s train of thought. “It’s not… something you want to get into right now, trust me.”

“It really isn’t,” Jade agrees.

“We should probably get moving, anyway,” Sophie adds. “That shiny goo stuff _spreads,_ so I’m not sure if it’s really safe to stay in one place for long, on this world. Besides, we still have to look for the others.”

Jade nods. “Quite right, Sophie. Would you mind leading the way?”

Sophie grins, bounding ahead before she even answers. “Of course!!”

Riku and Namine move just a second after her, and once Namine has pulled Riku a little ways away from Jade, Shadow hears her whisper: “The answer to your question is yes, though.” She sounds uneasy, or maybe just unsure. “It’s a lot different than it is in our world, but…”

And then she and Riku are out of earshot.

And Shadow realizes that Jade hasn’t moved at all.

“But, really,” Jade says, still smiling at Shadow, though it’s not quite as bright, not in this moment. “If the replica I made isn’t a suitable replacement, let me know, and I’ll make another. It’s possible that even I made a mistake when copying the data.”

Shadow should probably say thank you—for replicating his limiter at all, or for the offer—but instead he asks:

“Can you even tell which one’s the replica, and which isn’t?”

“Oh, of course I can,” Jade answers, bright.

Alright, that’s enough of that.

“Hmph,” Shadow says, and skates ahead to catch up to everyone else, leaving Jade behind.


End file.
